“What would you tell your younger self about sex if you could? (Starting with the big question: Why does it exist in the first place?) Mixing talk and dance, John Bohannon and Black Label Movement explore why sex exists — and implore adults to talk honestly to the kids in their lives about the confusion and joy of human sexuality.” -Ted Ed

In March 2012 BLM and John Bohannon presented a new TED talk at the 2012 TED: Full Spectrum Conference in Long Beach, CA entitled The Facts of Life Talk. The presentation considers how clear scientific information can be useful in helping young people wrestle with the awakening of their sexuality.

Canary, a dance for nine, an examination of the superficial formalities that attempt to contain more primal urges in the landscape of a surrealistic ballroom/prom night. Original soundscape by Greg Brosofske. Canary was underwritten the American Composers Forum’s Live Music for Dance Minnesota program in partnership with New Music USA. Canary premiered in February 2012 at the Cowles Center for Dance and the Performing Arts.

A Modest Proposal examines the utility of collaborations between scientists and dance artists as well as raising the question of whether power point presentations are overused in today’s global culture. First presented at the 2011 TEDx Brussels with Science Magazine correspondent John Bohannon, A Modest Proposal has gone on to be a viral internet hit since being posted on the primary TED website in December 2011. It now has an estimated number of views of over 1.6 million.

A full choreographic commission by the Minnesota Orchestra, Oceania is a pure movement response to Claude Debussy’s classical masterpiece La Mer. The work by Debussy is itself an exploration of the motions and moods of the ocean. Oceania finds a movement synthesis with the sonic landscape painted by Debussy’s composition. Oceania premiered in March 2011 at Orchestra Hall with the Minnesota Orchestra.

HIT is inspired by the exploration of impact that came directly from BLM’s ongoing collaboration with biomedical engineer David Odde on the physically violent interior of the cell. The work takes this technique of impact and applies it to a scathing examination of human relationships in which the prohibition against violent physicality is removed. Original soundscape by Greg Brosofske. HIT was underwritten the McKnight Artist Fellowship for Choreographers Program and the American Composers Forum’s Live Music for Dance Minnesota program in partnership with New Music USA, with matching funds provided by the McKnight Foundation. HIT premiered in March 2011 at The Dance Center of Columbia College of Chicago.

A full collaboration with Twin Cities theater artist Luverne Seifert The Woyzeck Project brings to life the interior of playwright Georg Bűchner’s mind. Audience members enter the tortured confines of the brain that created the seminole German play Woyzeck, a poetic meditation on war, violence, unethical scientific experimentation, murder and the fragile encounter between passion and love. The Woyzeck Project premiered at the Southern Theater in October 2010.

Field Songs examines the often-fraught boundaries where rural and urban landscapes and cultures collide. Featuring sod, concrete and live music by local roots-rock band The Jinnies, Field Songs examines the often-fraught boundaries where rural and urban landscapes and cultures collide.

Set inside the last watertight compartment of a recently sunk ore boat resting at the bottom of Lake Superior, Wreck explores the depths of physical and psychological endurance and human fortitude in the face of impending and inevitable destruction. The piece plunges towards the ragged edge of movement and stamina as it seeks the physical event horizon where violence and cooperation, obsession and compassion and the ultimate question of how we will enter death at the edge of the Abyss.

This deceptively simple duet on two benches is both a part of Carl Flink’s in-progress evening length work Wreck and a stand alone piece. The duet reveals an intimate relationship frayed at its edges moving inexorably towards a final moment that could be resolution or resignation.

A solo, Spill was initially inspired by a magazine photo of a person who had fallen into a well. Later, while traveling with the Limon Dance Company to Alaska after the Exxon Valdez oil spill, Plauché Flink was moved by the photographs of sea life, birds in particular, covered in oil. Their innate nobility and natural instincts were at such odds with what was being done to them by outside forces.

Press:

“Plauché Flink’s subtle solo Spill is welcome complement to Flink’s sometimes relentless athleticism. Leslie O’Neill flails her limbs and sidles across the floor like a protean creature in the act of transformation. Alert and mysterious, she’s a destabilized force valiantly struggling for equilibrium.” – Linda Shapiro, St. Paul Pioneer Press, August 20, 2006.

A dance for ten, A Fractured Narrative for a Sad Ending is a movement collage of the collision of choreographer Carl Flink’s memories of his sister Pamela Flink’s untimely death due to unknown causes and their childhood days spent swimming in an aboveground pool their father set up in their home’s backyard.

Press:

“Flink’s aching response to the death of his adopted sister due to heroin addiction. . . . The piece’s final kinetic image of disconsolation packs a wallop, but an earlier moment, in which Flink repeatedly pushes his head into Barnhill’s torso as she lies on the floor, encapsulate all the heartbreak the piece really needed.” – Camille Lefevre, Minneapolis/St. Paul StarTribune, August 20, 2006.

“Based on Flink’s sister’s recent death after years of substance abuse. Flink and Hettie Barnhill play out a poignant relationship evolving from buoyant games of childhood to the girl’s descent into addiction. His heartbreaking attempts to support and sustain her as she increasingly eludes him are powerfully conveyed.” – Linda Shapiro, St. Paul Pioneer Press, August 20, 2006.

In this physical and fluid octet choreographer Carl Flink was inspired by the stark dichotomy of holding his infant child in his arms late at night while watching the initial images from the United States’ current war in Iraq on the television.

This octet is a cubist self-portrait by choreographer Carl Flink on eight bodies, female and male. The piece captures the daring and athletic movement emblematic of Flink’s choreographic style, while revealing moments of riveting tenderness and shadowy violence through the harsh white light of a light box held by a faceless operator.

Press

“Moving at full throttle, the dancers pour their energy into the space like molten lava in a tour de force of passionate, full-bodied dancing. Flink sculpts the space with powerful shapes and patterns, creating an architecture of thwarted desire and ritual mourning . . . .” – Linda Shapiro, St. Paul Pioneer Press, April 2, 2005.

“Ten dancers expertly catapult over one another and dive to the floor like savvy kids on a very dangerous playground. Their heart-stopping momentum and slam-bang collisions evoke the restless (and reckless) desperation of contemporary youth cultures.” – Linda Shapiro, St. Paul Pioneer Press, August 20, 2006.

This Bleeding Heart . . . was selected for the 2006 American College Dance Festival Association National Gala at the Kennedy Center.